About Me

I truly believe I am the luckiest girl in the world. At 23 years old, I've had more life-changing experiences than most do in an entire lifetime. From sailing around the world to dancing down Main Street USA, I have to wonder how this is all real.

What's Next?

For the first time in a while, I'm not really sure where my life is headed. I'll be heading to Florida after graduation to continue working for Disney, but in terms of major plans, all I know is that I want to make a difference. I'm not sure where, and I'm not sure how, but unknowing adventure is an idea I've definitely become more comfortable with over the years.

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Friday, April 20, 2012

On the morning of day 3 in Vietnam, I had a service visit to a school for disabled children. Though the green sheet said were supposed to leave at 730, it was actually 8 so we ended up standing outside for a while because the bus driver wouldn't let us on without our FDP tickets (which aren't issued for government manifested trips like this one), so by the time we were on our way we were already tired and sweaty from sitting in the brutal sun, but still excited to go. When we were dropped off by the bus we had to walk through a school playground and through a random fence and then an ally to get to the school, but once we did get there I was pretty impressed with how nice it was. The school opened in the 90s so it was on the newer side, and one thing that impressed me was that the school was free for all children. The founder and principal didn't speak English, so our tour guide was translating for us, but from what she told us (I always question translations and the validity of them, but what can you do) the teacher to student ratio is 1 to 3 which is amazing and the classes are divided up not by actual age but by mental capacity. After our talk we were taken into a few classrooms and definitely saw what the principal had meant by the divisions. The kids in each class were off all different ages, but where as some classes were only 4-5 kids with 3 teachers and coloring, others were 10 or so kids with 1 or 2 teachers and were doing basic math. I was really impressed with the organization (and founding) of this school. It was clean, organized, and dedicated. I was also impressed because truthfully I didn't expect Vietnam to be so kind-minded towards the disabled. Knowing Vietnam has a 2 child policy I had expected to see that disabled kids would just be forgotten about and left to die so that families could have 2 "normal" children. This was one time when I was very glad to be proven wrong.

After observing the classes for a while we went to the main auditorium area and did gym class with the kids. We did stretches and songs and then literally danced to really loud music for like 45 minutes. I was exhausted by the end, but it was so much fun! After our dancing the staff fed us some fruit and water and asked us to help set up for lunch. After the kids ate lunch, they had nap time! They pulled out blankets and changed into PJs and turned off all of the lights! Every.persons.dream. We left the school after this and went back to ship to get lunch.

After lunch we met up with Becca and we went to go get our dresses fitted. It turned out they weren't quite ready yet and asked us to come back in a few hours. So meanwhile we went to the market again to look for some more stuff. I got a tee shirt for $5 and nothing else, so I was pretty proud of myself for that. Becca got a big backpack and Dain also got just one shirt.

After the market we walked by to try on our dresses and it was SO awesome. I was so happy with them so far and honestly couldn't wait to see the real product the next day. Next, we caught up with Lexi and Kevin and all of us went, where else, shopping at the night market and the mall. To be entirely honest, I am writing this after Japan, already halfway to Hawaii, and I can't actually remember the rest of the day. Actually, I think the remnants museum was day 3, and not day 2, but somewhere I am missing something and I have no idea what. Oops. Blog fail.*Disclaimer: Unlike a lot of the people on this voyage, the reason I don't remember what happened has NOTHING to do with alcohol-abuse, actually, it has nothing to do with alcohol at all. K, moving on.